A recent report estimates that 237 million medication errors occur in the NHS medication process in England per year. However, a new generation of ‘smart pumps’ could help hospitals to reduce the risk of IV medication errors.
The high number of medication errors and mix-ups in the NHS medication process1 contribute to as many as 22,300 deaths a year,2 according to a major report commissioned by the Government. Up to 54% of these errors occur during drug administration.1
Research by the National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) indicates that the risk of errors involving injectable medicines is higher than for any other dosage route.3 It’s estimated that 61.4 million errors occur in England per annum that have the potential to cause moderate harm, and 4.8 m which have the potential to cause severe harm.1
There are a huge number of different brands and models of infusion pumps that can be configured in different ways – which can open up the possibility of errors made by staff when administering prescribed medications across different pumps.
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